[IW] Ordinary Worlds with valuables!

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

For idiots who absolutely insist on going to such timelines, the kinder thing to do would be to quietly send in I-Cops to mindwipe them or otherwise neutralize them as a threat to The Secret and then leaving them there. One less trail leading back to Homeline, no prisons, kidnap attemtps or lethal violence required, "plausible deniability" back on Homeline and a fearsome lack of information about mysterious disappearances to deter potential imitators.

But could they mindwipe them well enough to be beyond the power of the golden lasso? Hard to say. Could they mindwipe them well enough to conceal things from someone like Charles Xavier (different time line, but same principle)? I tend to doubt it.

Of course the superheroes of the DC universe already know about the parallel worlds, at least in some iterations. Earth-1, Earth-2, etc. are probably just individual time lines in a single quantum, from Infinity's POV. Same deal with Marvel, they actually have Marvel Earth categorized as Earth 616, so it's no use trying to hide the existence of parallels, you'd just be trying to hide the existence of Infinity and Centrum (and maybe other quantums, if all the parellels in the particular comic universes are one Q).

Given the infinite number of parallels, there will inevitably be parallels where advanced technology or superheroic intelligence discovers The Secret. In such cases, Homeline has to bring it its best diplomats to explain to very powerful, potentially very curious people why they should stick to their own parallel, or at least who the players are and how the rules of the game work.

I-SWAT might have information sharing agreements with outfits like the JLA or United Federation of Planets Starfleet, with the understanding that "we keep our bad actors on our timeline and you keep your bad actors on yours." Other than that, crossovers by I-Corps and affiliated alternate timeline police organizations are arranged as needed.

From a gaming point of view, that means potential team-ups with famous fictional characters, potentially in situations where otherwise weak PCs actually have the upper hand and heavy hitters like Thor or Superman actually need the PCs' skills.

This is actually one of my complaints with the Infinity concept. It shares a problem with the idea of crossovers between Doctor Who and other fictional characters. Yeah, it lets you crossover with anyone...but doing so would logically transform the places you crossover with.

Let me see if I can give an example of what I mean. I once saw a gamer reference that he had had the I-cops visit the world of Robotech. I'll assume everyone is familiar with Robotech, if not it's easily googled. (This is during the long low-energy orbit from Pluto back to Earth.)

There were bad actors from parallel Earths on the SDF-1, and according to the poster, the I-cops had inserted a team onto the ship and made contact with Captain Gloval, who agreed to keep them secret and let them do their work without interference.

Nope. Wouldn't happen that way. Why?

Here's why. Captain Gloval is in a desperate situation. He's got 50,000 civilians in the hold of the ship. The Zentraedi outnumber him and his forces by literally millions to one. Gloval is caught between a corrupt and incompetent world government on Earth and an alien enemy that could, if things go sideways enough, wreck the world. (Which in fact eventually does happen.)

So he discovers humans from a parallel world on his ship. OK, that represents a huge freaking opportunity! If he can get hold of conveyor technology, and use it reach an empty parallel, he can offload the civilians safely on an empty Earth, far beyond the reach of the Zentraedi. He would also know that such parallels would represent an emergency escape hatch for Earth if things go all the way south, it might be impossible to move everyone to a parallel but some survivors could do so.

After the Zentraedi leave Earth in wreckage and partly irradiated, this remains the case, conveyor tech could late the survivors reach more clement Earths, or trade with civilized Earths to rebuild their own.

Gloval, once he learns about the conveyor tech, is gonna do whatever is necessary to get hold of it. He's a good man, but that very fact could make him immensely ruthless when he's playing for the survival of the thousands of civilians aboard the SDF-1, or the billions (or later millions) of people on Earth. He might fail, but he's gonna pull out all the stops trying because, from his POV, it represents the best available escape option from catastrophe.

I picked Robotech as an example, but the same sort of consideration applies to other settings where the secret is even partly revealed, or where the Doctor drops in. Logically, in many cases, such a crossover will transform the crossed-over storyline permanently, if the people on the crossed-over side react as they logically would be expected to react.